415 Carlton Avenue (Fort Greene Partnership Homes)
415 Carlton Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11238
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
BBL 3019577501 · BIN 3251605
- Year built
- 1988
- Type
- Condominium
- Landmark
- No
- Flip tax
- No flip tax documented. Transfer costs at closing: capital contribution equal to two months' common charges, plus a $750 closing fee from the seller and a $750 closing fee from the purchaser, all payable to the condominium
- Financing
- By-laws require any first mortgage to be with an institutional lender; only the City Assistance Mortgage is permitted as a second mortgage; no third mortgages
- Subletting
- Permitted under the house rules: the lease must attach the Memorandum to New Residents and the Rules and Regulations as additional terms and must state that the tenant is bound by the Rules, Declaration and By-Laws; all leases must be filed with management. COUNTERVAILING: the initial deed under the City Assistance program carried an owner-occupancy covenant and the plan states the City may require prompt prepayment of its subsidy (up to $43,127) if the home is leased. Page flags this as a title/diligence question per unit
- Pets
- No dogs and no reptiles permitted unless expressly permitted in writing by the Board or the Managing Agent, revocable at their sole discretion. A maximum of two cats per home. No animal permitted in public portions unless carried or on a leash. No feeding of pigeons/birds from the homes, common elements or adjacent sidewalk. Fine imposed for violation
Compiled by The Roebling Research Desk from the building’s offering plan, amendments, and related building documents (primary source dated 1988 plan; 2011 residents' memorandum; current application to sell). Reported and subject to confirmation. Board policies can change by amendment — confirm at the offer stage.
In 1985 the City had a Fort Greene problem shaped like vacant land. The Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area had been cleared and never rebuilt, and the sites sat between a landmarked row-house district to the north and a rail yard to the south. The answer was the New York City Partnership New Homes Program: a not-for-profit development fund company took title, a private builder built, public subsidy closed the gap between construction cost and what a moderate-income family could pay, and the finished homes were conveyed to individual owners rather than held as rentals.
Fort Greene Partnership Homes is that program at full size. Ninety-eight homes in seven four-story walk-up buildings on four sites, about 1.6 acres, with thirteen street addresses on Fulton, Carlton, Adelphi, Clermont and Gates. The NYC Partnership Housing Development Fund Company acquired the land on June 19, 1985 under a Land Disposition Agreement with HPD, held title only while construction ran, and conveyed each home to its buyer. Greenwood Homes sponsored and sold; Beyer Blinder Belle drew the buildings. The plan's marketing terms required that ninety percent of purchasers have household incomes under $48,000 in 1988 dollars, and the financing stack behind that number is a period document in itself: a Norstar first mortgage at 10.125 percent, a State of New York Mortgage Agency commitment, a federal UDAG grant, a New York State Affordable Housing Corporation grant, and a City subordinate note.
Nearly four decades later the homes trade on the open market, unit by unit, with recorded deeds and market prices. No price restriction survives from the original program. One specific, checkable encumbrance does: the City Assistance Mortgage. Fully eligible original purchasers signed a non-recourse subordinate note of up to $43,127 that becomes payable if and when the home is sold at a profit, and the initial deed carried covenants requiring owner occupancy as a primary residence. Whether that lien has been satisfied or released on a given unit is a title search rather than an assumption, and it is the first thing a buyer's attorney should run down.
The buildings themselves are modest and were meant to be. Four stories, walk-up, eight homes per entry in the standard configuration — A and B on the first level, C and D above, E and F above that, G and H at the top. There is no garage, no gym and no recreation room; the shared open space is two small corner parks at Fulton and Clermont and Fulton and Adelphi. What Beyer Blinder Belle put into the plan instead were the things that make a walk-up livable: bay windows on selected homes, garden access through sliding glass doors on others, and a street wall scaled to the row houses around it rather than to the urban-renewal towers a few blocks west.
The 415 Carlton Avenue parcel is the westernmost of the four. It holds Buildings 1 and 2 — 415 and 419 Carlton Avenue and 420 and 424 Adelphi Street — and Finance carries 31 residential units against it. Across the street sits the individually landmarked mid-1860s church at 40–44 Greene Avenue, built for the Fourth Universalist Society, later St. Casimir's, and now the Paul Robeson Theatre. The block reads as continuous nineteenth-century Fort Greene with a careful late-1980s infill in the middle of it.
Architecture and unit composition
Four stories, brick, walk-up, no elevator, no basement units. The condominium's floor plates repeat: two homes per landing, left and right, from the first level to the top, giving eight homes per entry at most addresses. That regularity means the variables between homes are floor, exposure, and whether a home carries one of the two features the plan singles out — a bay window, or a sliding glass door onto a garden area.
Bedroom and bathroom counts vary across the 98 homes and are set out home by home on Schedule A. Because this is 1988 construction rather than a conversion, ceiling heights, layouts and window openings are consistent in a way that the district's brownstone co-ops are not, and the trade is the reverse of the usual Fort Greene bargain: no original detail, no parlor-floor scale, and no plaster to restore, in exchange for regular rooms, straight walls and a building that has never been carved up.
The homes were delivered with through-wall air conditioner sleeves and without the units themselves, which tells you where the specification sat. Thirty-eight years of individual ownership have since produced thirty-eight years of individual renovation, so condition is the dominant price variable inside the building and should be inspected rather than inferred.
Building operations
This is a self-governing condominium of substantial size run by a board of managers through an outside agent, with its own maintenance employees. The house rules are specific about the boundary: unit owners are responsible for everything inside the home — appliances, air conditioners, plumbing fixtures, alarms, wiring, radiators, flooring, walls and ceilings — and the condominium's maintenance staff are not authorized to work inside a home except in an emergency or where the board determines the damage originated in the common areas. A resident who hires a maintenance worker privately is doing so outside the condominium's shift hours and outside its liability.
Moves run Monday to Friday, nine to five, with a week's notice, a pre- and post-move survey of the common areas, a $500 refundable deposit, and certificates of insurance naming both the condominium and the managing agent for $1,000,000 comprehensive liability and $1,000,000 property damage plus workers' compensation for the movers and any subcontractor.
For capital diligence, the useful document is the audited financial statement — the condominium's statements are prepared with the supplementary schedule of future major repairs and replacements that condominium accounting requires, which is exactly the disclosure most small buildings leave out. Ask for several consecutive years, read the reserve position against that schedule, and ask directly about roofs, boilers and the 1988-vintage building envelope across all seven buildings, since common charges are shared condominium-wide rather than parcel by parcel.
Recent sales
The retrade record
Lines that have traded more than once in the public record — the building’s appreciation arc, apartment by apartment.
Recent closings at this building, sourced from NYC Department of Finance records. Apartment-level detail (line, condition, asking-price context) verified upon consultation request.
| Date | Unit | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 13, 2025 | C | $930,000 |
| May 25, 2023 | C | $806,000 |
| May 31, 2022 | A | $899,000 |
| Apr 15, 2021 | D | $875,000 |
| Apr 12, 2018 | A | $720,000 |
| Sep 12, 2013 | D | $510,500 |
Sales sourced from NYC Department of Finance recorded transfers (BBL 3-01957-7501) and verified listing data. Apartment-level facts (line, condition, asking-price context) curated and cross-verified by The Roebling Team research desk. Not all transactions cross-verify with ACRIS records — sponsor and LLC purchases sometimes record at stipulated values rather than market price.
What to know if you’re buying
Order the title search early and specifically. The original City Assistance note of up to $43,127 is payable if and when the home sells at a profit. Whether it has been satisfied or released on your unit is the single most consequential unknown in the file.
Confirm the tax position on the unit. The plan projected a 25-year 421-a partial exemption. Model carrying cost against today's bill, not against the plan.
Read the pet rule before you fall in love. No dogs and no reptiles without written board consent; two cats maximum.
Budget the transfer costs. A capital contribution of two months' common charges plus a $750 closing fee from the purchaser is more than most Brooklyn condominiums charge, and it lands at closing.
This is a walk-up on a residential block, not a serviced building. Four stories, no elevator, no garage, no gym. The compensations are fee ownership, condominium approval mechanics and a low-friction closing.
What to know if you’re selling
Clear the City lien question before you list. A seller who can show the City Assistance note satisfied removes the largest source of buyer hesitation in this building. A seller who cannot should know the number early, because it comes out of proceeds.
Lead with ownership form. Condominium, right of first refusal rather than board approval, ordinary financing, and a leasing framework — in a neighborhood whose small-building inventory is overwhelmingly cooperative. That is the argument.
Name the architect. Beyer Blinder Belle drew these buildings, and the plan says so. It is a documented fact and it distinguishes the listing from generic 1980s infill.
Disclose your own closing fee. The condominium charges the seller $750 at closing in addition to the purchaser's $750. Sophisticated buyers will find it; putting it in the deal room up front is cheaper than renegotiating for it.
Price against condominium comparables, not co-op comparables. The correct set is Fort Greene and Clinton Hill boutique condominiums, adjusted down for walk-up access and up for square footage and outdoor access where a home has it.
Comparable buildings
If you're considering Fort Greene Partnership Homes, also evaluate:
- 264 Cumberland Street (The Sanctuary) — thirteen-unit converted-chapel condominium inside the historic district; the boutique alternative at higher price per square foot
- 75 Greene Avenue — the former Diocese chancery converted to 22 condominiums four blocks northeast; the neighborhood's other condominium argument
- 147 South Oxford Street — 21-apartment elevator co-op near Atlantic Terminal; a direct co-op-versus-condo cross-check
- 44 Butler Place (Butler Plaza) — Prospect Heights condominium of comparable size; a useful cross-neighborhood check
- 372 DeKalb Avenue (Clinton Mews) — Clinton Hill's low-rise cooperative alternative at similar density
Considering a move at Fort Greene Partnership Homes?
Request a private building brief with the relevant comparable sales, current and off-market availability, and an apartment-specific view of value.
Own an apartment here? See what it would sell for.
A Private Pricing Opinion — what your apartment at Fort Greene Partnership Homes would likely sell for today, what it costs to sell, and what you’d walk away with — reviewed personally against condition, exposures, renovation quality, and the competition actually on the market.